After more than an hour of debate and six votes, Quincy’s city council Tuesday settled on awarding Quincy’s top elected official a salary of $136,708 for fiscal year 2015, with the expectation that he will earn $150,942 starting next year. State law says the raise can’t take effect until Jan. 1, halfway through fiscal 2015, which begins July 1.

Koch had requested a 30 percent raise – from his current salary of $122,474 to $159,216 – based on recommendations made in the fall by a special salary commission. The mayor hasn’t received a raise since he took office in 2008.

He is among 67 non-union city employees in line for raises as part of Koch’s $268.5 million budget proposal for fiscal 2015. The council, acting as the city’s finance committee, had approved the planned changes with little discussion until Tuesday’s budget meeting, when several councilors called the mayor’s increase into question.

“It would make him among the highest-salaried municipal executives in the state of Massachusetts,” at-large City Councilor Doug Gutro said. “In my 25-plus years of government service, I honestly know of no person – no person ever – who got a 30 percent raise.”

In what turned into an exercise of parliamentary procedure, the committee took six votes affecting the mayor’s salary. The 30 percent raise failed, as did a proposal for no raise whatsoever.

The first vote was on Ward 2 Councilor Brad Croall’s proposal to give the mayor a raise of 23 percent instead of 30 percent. The proposal was rejected, but when councilors revisited it almost an hour later, it passed, 6-3, thanks to swing votes from at-large Councilors Joseph Finn and Michael McFarland, who initially wanted the 30 percent raise.

Ward 4 Councilor Brian Palmucci, who voted for the 23 percent raise, said not giving the mayor a raise would be unfair.

“Assuming the rest of the budget moves forward as it has progressed thus far, everyone in the city gets a raise except for the mayor,” Palmucci said. “The union employees have negotiated a raise, so they’ve had one. So for four, five years, the only person ... that wouldn’t get a raise is the mayor. I don’t think that’s right.”

Finn said the raise is needed so the city can get the best candidates for mayor, especially considering that the mayoral term will go from two years to four starting with next year’s city election. Finn said the average salary for a CEO of a nonprofit organization is $174,000, and most of those CEOs don’t manage a $268.5 million budget as Quincy’s mayor does.

“To see that (mayor’s salary) at $160,000 still might not necessarily attract some of the best and greatest people who may pursue this otherwise,” Finn said.

Voting against the 23 percent raise were Gutro, Ward 6 Councilor Brian McNamee and Ward 3 Councilor Kevin Coughlin. McNamee has voted against all of the mayor’s pay bumps for city employees because he thinks Koch should have hired an outside firm to study the salaries. He said the taxpayers can’t trust recommendations made by a five-member salary commission appointed by the mayor himself, three members of which had donated to Koch’s political campaign in the past.

Although Coughlin said he would support incremental pay increases for the mayor, he has heard from city residents who are bothered by a substantial raise.

Gutro said Quincy’s mayor, if given the 30 percent raise, would earn more than 44 state governors in the U.S. Ward 5 Councilor Kirsten Hughes said it was an unfair comparison, considering that governors typically are more connected politically and independently wealthy from business ventures.

“Certainly the former mayor of Quincy does not go off into a cabinet position or off into a firm,” Hughes said.

The finance committee will hold its last departmental budget meeting June 9. The city council is expected to vote on the entire budget the following week. During the budget process, councilors can propose cuts, but not increases.

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